Have you ever just found out your best friend's sister just died, and then checked your e-mail because you're worried sick about what your friend is going through, and found only a piece of spam about "hot singles"?
Sometimes e-mail sucks.

Mood: Inscrutible
Timourous credulity
Skulking takes
All our yesterdays and tomorrow's fools
With unknown felicitation
And borrowed veracity
To the brink

Summer's Uncertainty Collapses Into Autumn's Finality
I have been trying to decide whether to take a class this fall or not. If I did, it would probably be first semester Latin.
I was hoping though to get moved in and settled before the fall semester started, and there's a good possibility that might not happen. Also the idea of taking the semester off if I'm going to start an MLS program in January is very appealing.
There is a display case just inside the library and staff are free to volunteer to come up with a themed display for it. Last spring, the assistant director was saying to me he wished there was a way to bring my interest in classical studies into my job. He suggested I put together a display on ancient law. I agreed. I got scheduled to do a display this fall because they thought there was no point doing a special display like that in the summer because so few people are here. I printed out images of papyrus framents of ancient legal docments, like this
and this. I was going to pin those up on the sides of the display case with labels, and find a bunch of books from the stacks on ancient western law.
I don't feel like doing it anymore. I want to tell them to wipe my display off the schedule. I feel so burned by my experience this summer, trying to go back to school in classics, I just don't feel like having anything to do with it.
And I guess, really, this feeling is partly why I want to take the fall semester off from class.

The Hike at 7:45 am
There's a lot of construction going on around here. They're building a parking deck behind the student union. For some reason, they've torn up the street in front of the basketball stadium and replaced the asphalt with cobblestones. They've torn up the sidewalks and curbs around the main quad to put in wheelchair ramps. They're renovating some dorms that haven't gotten anything other than a coat of paint since 1928.
This impacts me in the following ways: My chauffeur is on vacation this week, so I am riding the bus. In the summer, only one campus bus runs and it's one that goes from East to West Campus, and on the way it winds through a neighborhood of apartments for grad students. The bus stop on East is pretty close to my apartment building, but the one on West is not at all close to the law school. And the most convienient routes to walk here are now blocked by one construction project or another. The campus planners have conspired to give me a hard time.
But the nice, long walk gives one time to think. And what I was thinking about this morning was - forgive me for indulging in self-pity but we all have moments like this - what a lousy summer this has been.

Law Student So Smart
Students usually bring a book to the circulation desk and ask, "Can I check this out?"
I usually answer this question with "Probably." And once in a while, the student questions this answer. I had one just now. They expect "Yes," but they get "Probably." and it rocks their little student-as-consumer world.
"Can I check this out?"
"Probably."
"'Probably'? You mean there's a possibility that I can't check that out?"
"When you ask 'Can I check this out,' you're asking if you are able to check that out. You should have asked 'May I check this out.'"
"Oh."
I love doing that.

The Overcast Monday
When I arrived at work this morning I had a voice-mail message from my landlord. He said he would get the painters into the new apartment later this week, and that I could probably move "next week." He also said to go ahead and pay the $250 on my current apartment and he'd figure out some prorated amount when I move.

* * * * * * * * * *

My friend Rob has a very ill sister. She probably won't be with us much longer.
A few years ago she was in Tampa, Florida, and rescued a kitten from a crack house. She named him Max, and Max grew into a magnificent all-white cat. When she had to go into a nursing home last summer, Rob took over Max's care. Max has probably had a much better life than if he'd stayed in Tampa.

Student As Consumer
I hate that phrase. I hear it kicked around at work.
But I realised I have come face to tace with the realities of this phenonenom. This is why that professor at Carolina was so "Pay up or get out." Carolina has probably had to begin running itself even more like a business than the trend dictates because they're not getting any money from the state.